“Imagine, Mystic One,” the Skeptic continued in a singsong voice, lost in a lecture that fascinated me as much as it appalled. “Imagine an ecosystem of pure energy, of life-forms enriched by the movement of power along pathways, flowing downhill not as a river from a height, but from a higher potential to lower.
“Add to this system beings who naturally attract and store this power, beings able to send their accumulated energy flashing down these pathways like a surging flood of wealth.”
“So when I, or any Clan, travel within the M’hir, we are—feeding—what lives there?” It wasn’t, I thought, so bad. In fact, the concept was a vast improvement over being hunted by some predator within it. Then, for no reason, I remembered my nightmare vision of streams of blood pouring away from me into the M’hir, and wasn’t so sure.
“We Drapsk, and the Carasians, believe there are many forms of life here which have their place within the Scented Way as well. Some knowingly, as yourselves, and some without. I trust you’ll forgive my saying that the Clan are the only ones we’ve met who considered they have created it themselves.”
I shook my head. “Only one of many misconceptions my kind has to overcome, Copelup. Their enlightenment will be,” I paused and felt myself smiling involuntarily, “interesting.”
“Interesting, Mystic One?” Copelup repeated. “Is this how you expect them to respond to the knowledge that your kind are being cultivated? I would not have guessed.”
“Cultivated. As in—” I swallowed.
“As in farming.”
INTERLUDE
At some point, Barac discovered, it didn’t matter how filthy the floor or ominous the vermin, you had to sleep. So he had found himself nodding off time and again, despite having propped himself in the driest corner with legs and body arranged for the minimum contact with Retian architecture.
He tried harder to keep awake after the lights turned off—a surprise when, by his chrono, it had looked as though they’d planned to leave it on all night, possibly to keep the restless fungi from investigating the latest offering. A plan he highly approved.
A nearby slobbering sent the Clansman scrambling to his feet. “If these things aren’t harmless,” he called out, his heart rate speeding to nearly terminal levels, “I suggest you get me out of here or turn on that light.”
There was no answer. Barac felt his way to the door, touching only when he must in case more of the things were stuck on the walls. Still locked.
He stepped on something that writhed and pulled itself from underfoot with appalling strength. “Get me out of here!” he shouted, no longer concerned about what anyone thought.
Instinctively, the Clansman threw himself at the M’hir, knowing it was probably still as locked to him as the door. No, he realized immediately, it wasn’t! But before Barac could concentrate and form a locate, there was another presence in his way.
It was beautiful beyond mere words, desirable beyond life itself.
Desperately, Barac tried to hold himself in the cell, knowing what he’d inadvertently found was deadlier to him than any hungry fungus.
But the attempt was impossible, doomed by a need deeper than survival.
Helplessly answering it, Barac pushed himself into the M’hir . . .
. . . seeking the Chooser whose power called him to her Test.
Chapter 43
FARMING. It was one way to conceptualize what Copelup told me about the M’hir and the Clan, though like any model of something unknown, it didn’t explain everything. Just enough to ring of the truth.
I stood in the fresher, letting jets of foam pound against my face, using one hand to keep the stuff out of my nostrils. Concentrating on the warmth rolling over my shoulders and down my back was infinitely better than concentrating on what I’d learned, but there was no escaping it.
What I really wanted was to talk to Morgan, to have him help me puzzle some meaning from it. I switched from foam to needles of rinse water, gasping as I took away my hand and couldn’t breathe for a moment.
Something in the M’hir—Copelup’s insistence he wasn’t implying deliberation or intent more than sufficient to terrify me by the mere idea of an intelligence there—something was acting on the Clan in order to increase each generation’s effect on the power within the M’hir. The Power-of-Choice, as I’d described it to him, was the method; the connections between mother and daughter, between Chooser and Chosen, were the goal.
The Power-of-Choice itself was like some charge built in the M’hir around the presence of a Chooser, a potential growing throughout the Chooser’s early years until great enough to forge a permanent pathway to the power of an unChosen male. Looked at without emotional overtones, it was like some mine of precious ore to whatever M’hir-life relied on that movement of power.
Viewed, however, with the knowledge of dead and future-less unChosen, it was an alien curse, applied to us without our knowledge or consent.
I hit the control for warm air, rubbing my hair with both hands though I could feel the heavy locks vibrating to shake off the moisture. Old habits died hard.
As did the habit of considering the M’hir lifeless, a domain peculiarly Clan. But it was a habit not likely to help me, so I tried to keep my mind open to the strange ideas of the Drapsk.
Especially when one of them was a dire prediction concerning my own future. I’d given the Power-of-Choice to Morgan, ridding myself of it forever, I’d thought.
According to Copelup and his instruments, the M’hir was replacing that power, continuing to attach more to the space I inhabited; a buildup of force he saw no sign of stopping until it was again as it was.
And until I was again that deadly, dangerous thing: a Chooser, driven to test the unChosen and kill the less potent.
Including, perhaps, Morgan himself.
I stepped out of the fresher, feeling as weary and soiled as when I’d entered it. No, I decided. I felt as worn as when I’d first discovered the truth about myself, about being a Chooser and the threat I’d willingly posed to Morgan.
The Drapsk theorized I’d been attacked in the M’hir by some life-form attracted to me not by what I was doing to Drapskii but by the same imbalance of power that was causing the return of the Power-of-Choice. For this reason, they wanted to forbid me to enter the M’hir until the Power-of-Choice was restored. Copelup feared I would be attacked again any time I lingered in that other place.
A shame I wasn’t prepared to wait.
I pulled on the spacer coveralls, too new still, but I’d asked the Drapsk to buy them for me. Squeamishness, but it did feel better knowing mine was the only skin to have been inside them.
Then I made sure my door was closed and locked, one advantage to the Nokraud over the Drapsk ship, and lay down on the bed. I didn’t know how long I would have before Copelup’s instruments would warn him of what I was attempting—I didn’t assume they couldn’t.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated, forming the image of my sister Rael, adding layer upon layer of knowledge and memory until I could have reached out and touched her in my mind, heard her soft voice. The image left me, became a crackle of energy soaring out into the darkness of the M’hir, carrying my consciousness along with it. The heart-search was uncontrollable and not always successful. It was, I remembered dimly as it carried me along, usually exciting.
Sira! A recognition in my mind more than a name and a reaction so laced with warnings and fears I could hardly make sense of it. Instead of trying, I grabbed impulsively, pulling Rael with me . . .
On one level I knew where my physical form was, could feel the sheets, sense the heaving of my lungs as I fought for strength. On another, more immediate and pressing, I was a sun around which worlds revolved, one of them glowing with its own light and linked to me by the merest thread, lengthening and thinning with every instant.
Dark things orbited me, too: things of unimaginable form and vaporous teeth, recognizable from nightmare visions. I grabbed without hands or arms for the glow
that was Rael, knowing suddenly I’d doomed us both if I couldn’t pull free before they decided to attack.
I pushed with all I had, feeling Rael’s considerable strength joining me in that desperate effort to escape. It wasn’t enough. Just when I’d knew I’d failed and resigned myself to death, I was pulled forward, somehow still clinging to the brightness that marked my sister . . .
. . . and came abruptly back into myself, staring up at the circle of agitated Drapsk and one very noisy Carasian. Rael was crouched on her knees beside me, her hand in mine, looking as though she’d fallen out of her own bed. There was the beginning of a smile on her face, as well as a suspicion of tears. I thought to myself, with vast relief: here was one time I’d been right.
Past the forest of twitching plumes I could see all that Huido had left of my door.
“I’d like you to meet my sister,” I told my rescuers feebly.
INTERLUDE
All three were lovely, a detail easy to confirm in the glow of his handlight given the transparency of the boxes housing them. They might have been dead, for all the signs otherwise, if Morgan hadn’t his other sense to rely upon.
And they were Clan, as he’d suspected. Morgan tiptoed around the small laboratory, irrationally afraid of waking the sleepers, although he was sure it would take more than a clumsy step. Their hair lay lifeless, silken shrouds over their shoulders and breasts; Sira’s had moved with her dreams.
The boxes weren’t the type routinely used on passenger liners, being more elaborate and, he looked more closely at one, these could be opened at will without affecting the occupants. Morgan didn’t dare touch them without knowing their purpose. He hunted for clues, shining his light around the small room. There were lines of script on the various machines, sheets of the same notation scattered about on counters. None of it was Comscript and Morgan’s knowledge of written Retian was confined to traffic signs and numbers.
They were not Choosers, as he had come to understand Clan physiology. The bodies of these Clanswomen were mature. He didn’t recognize their faces, though the one in the middle bore some resemblance to Rael in the shape of mouth and chin.
He stared at each face in turn, hoping Sira would be able to lift the memory and recognize them. There didn’t seem anything else he could safely do for them. They might, though Morgan doubted it, be here of their own free will, seeking some therapy from the Retians.
Time for the next door. Morgan dimmed his light as he reentered the corridor, taking a moment to lock the door behind him. No sign of any success in the repairs yet, but his lips pressed together in a grim line as he calculated the likely number of minutes he had left.
The next door had a double set of locks, one easily circumvented, the other requiring a scan to confirm identity. Morgan slipped his force blade from its sheath into his hand, triggering the tiny blade. It cut through the plas and metal cover of the door mechanism itself as if through flesh and bone. From there it was the work of a few seconds to thoroughly destroy both locks and convince the door to open.
Mind you, Morgan thought as he very cautiously stepped inside, it will be much less than a second before a restoration of systems sounds an entry alarm.
Time and care. He breathed lightly, irregularly, establishing no rhythm. His handlight was off, there being sufficient illumination from the indicator lights on the incubators to show Morgan the outlines of furnishings and walls once his eyes became accustomed to it.
Twenty-four domed incubators filled the center of the room, each no more than an arm’s length long and half that wide. Morgan moved to the nearest, examining it intently. Servo arms and other devices filled most of the interior—when he bent to look through the clear sides, he could see a small tray in the midst. He risked a beam from his handlight. The tray reflected it back as though filled with water or a similar liquid, an almost invisible disk of something moist floating on its surface.
Morgan checked the rest, moving swiftly yet soundlessly. All but three of the incubators and their contents were identical. Those, he observed with a sense of foreboding, those three were empty and dark, their servos shut down.
The Human put his free hand on one of the dark incubators, thinking of the three Clanswomen next door; his fingers trembled until he pressed them against the cold surface. He didn’t need to be an expert to understand the implications: Sira’s missing tissue implanted into willing or unwilling hosts. Anger, he acknowledged, feeling it pounding in his ears, anger for what had been taken from Sira and how it was being used.
But it was more than anger that held him rigid and dismayed, uncertain what to do next. Morgan had given the Clanswoman his love unconditionally, knowing it meant turning aside from other possibilities, including the one represented by this empty box. He’d convinced himself it was only a minor cost against so great a benefit.
Yet here was proof his sacrifice was meaningless, that others might do what he could not, provide Sira with a living legacy. It was like a blow, this realization of how much it mattered to him. He couldn’t destroy what was here—he couldn’t bring himself to so much as disturb it.
Morgan fought to regain his self-control, to think through his options. Maybe there would be some kind of stasis tube he could use to carry the tissue safely; maybe he could use his Talent to reach the sleeping minds of the Clanswomen, confirm or refute his suspicions. What would Sira want him to do, if recovering what was stolen was patently beyond his abilities?
Too late! The sound of a curtain being yanked to one side was paired to the return of full lighting, blinding both Morgan and that other so that they froze, squinting at one another for a comic instance.
Even as the force blade dropped from its sheath into his waiting hand, Morgan recognized Faitlen di Parth, member of the Clan Council. The Clansman must have valued his experiments enough to stay here on guard.
Morgan’s mind was suddenly calm and focused, cleared of everything but his rage.
What might have happened next, Morgan never knew. A scream tore through the air—no, it was unheard, echoing only in his mind. And Faitlen’s, as the Clansman put both hands to his head, writhing as if in pain. “No!” the Clansman shouted furiously, turning from Morgan and hurrying back into the room he had just left.
Leaving the Human no choice but to follow.
Chapter 44
THE Drapsk, especially the Makii, had been under considerable strain these few days, starting with my inexplicable truffle chase and culminating in the arrival of a new Mystic One right under their nonexistent noses. A Mystic One, moreover, without Tribal affiliation. They were not, I could tell, happy at all.
If anything, Copelup the Skeptic was in worse shape. My near-disaster in the M’hir had indeed registered, as I’d expected, on his instruments. Instead of pointless panic—he’d saved that for the aftermath—Copelup had activated the machine which collected matter from the M’hir, somehow keying it to the identity I displayed there. I could amply testify to the machine’s drawing power, despite having no idea how such a thing could work.
Copelup couldn’t explain either. For the first time since I’d met him, Copelup wasn’t interested in observations, information, or even my annoying questions. Once he’d seen I was safe, he’d performed eopari and, from what the others were telling me, might stay stubbornly dormant for days.
“Can’t they, well, move him?” Rael asked, walking around the ball of Drapsk now forming the centerpiece of my room on the Nokraud. The pair of Drapsk repairing the door hooted softly to themselves.
“The Makii,” I said with a stern look at the two within view, “assure me this would cause the poor fellow extreme disorientation when he emerges. Some of them find the idea quite entertaining. Since this disorientation might lead Copelup to need gripstsa, and since there are no other Skeptics on Ret 7 to perform this act with him, I find their amusement in poor taste.”
Rael looked doubtfully at the Makii crew, then back to me. Her words formed in my thoughts: Strange beings. Why are t
hey helping you?
“Turn around,” I told her out loud, watching her stiffen with surprise as she obeyed only to see the Makii with their plumed antennae aimed at her. Then, I added in the inner speech: They have a connection to the M’hir, Rael. Not like ours, but as you see they can detect our presence there. The antennae, as I’d expected, switched instantly to point in my direction, even as the Drapsk continued working on the door. I felt Rael’s exploring thought reach toward them, shutting down as the Drapsk cooperatively turned their plumes her way again.
I thought Humans were bad enough, she sent, her generous mouth twitching into a smile.
I returned it without the offense I might have taken before we’d shared mind-to-mind. It had been Rael’s offer, the first thing she’d said to me after I’d brought her to Ret 7. Traveling through my sister’s ordered and open thoughts had been like an antidote to some poison I hadn’t realized was coursing through me. I now understood why she had involved herself with Ica di Teerac’s plotting and, seeing the depth of her concern for Morgan’s fate as well as mine, forgave it. We’d been heart-kin before I’d been Sira Morgan. I found, like an unexpected gift, we could be again.
Unfortunately, it was just in time to face the rest of the family, including a few I’d gladly send to Huido’s cook. “Sit, Rael,” I suggested. My room was the best the Nokraud could offer a passenger. Since it was also designed as luxury for a Scat, I concluded Grackik and Rek had their species’ sense of humor. The Drapsk, undaunted, had done a magnificent job in very little time to remove all evidence of that species’ preferred lifestyle, replacing cages, sandpits, and heating lamps with a mismatched but comfortable assortment of Human furnishings.
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